Rights activists have urged the UN to change its policy in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a leaked report said the rebellion there was worsening. Human Rights Watch called for a greater effort to tackle a global crime network backing the ethnic Hutu rebels.

The trial in the case The Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, which will open on Tuesday, 24 November, 2009, before Trial-Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC), is the second trial in the context of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), referred to the Court by the Government of the DRC on 3 March, 2004.

An advanced team of 10 officers and 178 troops from the Bangladeshi army arrived in Bunia, district of Ituri yesterday Wednesday 26 August ahead of a new contingent which will be part of the 3000 additional troops authorized by the Security Council in December 2009 to deploy in DRC.

A senior United Nations peacekeeping official continued his tour today of the war-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where he is evaluating the state of the country’s troubled prison system.

Defendant Thomas Lubanga visited military training camps to boost the morale of young recruits, a former child soldier told prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, ICC, this week. “I saw the president on two occasions,” the unnamed witness told the court. “The first time he came, he asked about our situation in general. The second time, he tried to boost our morale—it was a few days before training ended.”

The UN force chief in the Democratic Republic of Congo has complained there is still no sign of 3,000 peacekeepers approved by the UN five months ago. Alan Doss told the BBC his force was overstretched and unable to respond effectively to outbreaks of violence.

Ongoing negotiations between the Congolese government and the political wing
of the rebel National Congress for People's Defense (CNDP) ends today (Friday) in the restive North Kivu province of Goma. This follows a recent peace deal to end the long time hostilities between the national army and the rebels which has left scores dead and a sharp increase in the internally displaced persons.

The Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has on 16 February 2009 declared the end of the Ebola epidemic in the Mweka and Luebo health zones in the Province of Kasai Occidental . The last person to be infected by the virus died on 1 January 2009. This is more than double the maximum incubation period (42 days) for Ebola.

The joint military operation by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to dislodge armed militias from North Kivu Province has prompted an increase in combatants willing to be repatriated, President Joseph Kabila said.